IDEAS AND SNOWFLAKES

photo © 2005 eduardo fontanarrosa | more info (via: Wylio)

I spend way too much time admiring the importance of my own ideas, especially in my teaching. Sometimes I spend more than a few minutes praising myself for the marvelous ideas that made a successful lesson, as if the ideas are heroes I hold in high esteem. When a little idea of mine makes a big mark in the classroom, I often can’t get over how fortunate I am to have such super ideas. However, when I’m thinking clearly, I see with total certainty that my ideas are no more significant or long lasting than the snowflakes falling past my window just now. As a friend occasionally reminds me, “They’re just ideas, Ham. They’re not things, just ideas” – and, he might as well add, they come and go like gusts of wind on winter days. An idea that seemed so special after Tuesday’s successful lesson vanishes into nothingness by Thursday. Fortunately, this is true of troublesome ideas as well as inspiring ones. If the idea that I’m a lousy teacher comes along, well, it’s just an idea, and, if I let it alone, it will disappear just as surely as the snowflake that swayed past my window a moment ago. If worrisome ideas make me think I’ve lost my students forever, those, too, will soften and dissolve, just as this snow will when forty-degree days come along later this week. They’re just ideas. Not heroes and not enemies. Just rootless, transient, and – if I simply smile at them -- thoroughly harmless ideas.

RECEIVING THE ANSWER

Lately my grandson and I have had fun fitting jigsaw puzzles together, and the process has slowly begun to seem a lot like teaching. Just today I spent many minutes studying an open space in a puzzle, completely unable to find a piece to fit it, when suddenly, like a little magic, the proper piece seemed to place itself in my hand. I had been about to give up in aggravation when that piece found me and, just by itself, helped the whole puzzle seem much closer to completion. I couldn’t possibly count the number of times something similar has happened in my many years in the classroom. Puzzles seem ever-present in my life as a teacher: kids, classes, whole days, whole weeks can be thoroughly inscrutable puzzles. I often feel struck dumb in the middle of a class, completely perplexed about what to do next, what piece to place in the puzzle of this lesson I’m supposed to be teaching. It happens even more frequently after school or at home when I’m planning units or lessons, and everything seems strewn out in front of me like a thousand scattered pieces of a puzzle, none of which fit anywhere. When this happens, I sometimes have the wisdom to simply sit patiently and prepare myself to receive the answer, to suddenly see where the pieces fit effortlessly together. With patience, the answer almost always comes, just like today, when a small speck of a sparrow’s neck settled perfectly into our puzzle.

WITHOUT MY HELP

I am sometimes a far too officious teacher, every so often pushing myself into classroom situations that are proceeding quite nicely without my help. I need to remember what I saw this morning – how the slow winter sunrise started the day with no assistance from me. Not only that, the birds brought their songs to my street, a wind began waving past my house, and two trees leaned toward me as I walked outside – all of this happening without my support or aid. The universe obviously didn’t need my particular advice or guidance to do what it needed to do this morning, and my students don’t need nearly as much of my help as I sometimes like to believe. They have minds of their own which, like the stars in the sky, shine in special and secret ways. Being a trained teacher, there’s no doubt I can create constructive learning activities for the students, but there’s also no doubt that I should stand back when the students are shining just fine without me.

WHATEVER, WHEREVER

         I see that “whatever” has been declared the world’s most disliked word, but I’d like to say a good word for its reputation. In my classes, for instance, I ask the students to be considerate of their classmates’ opinions, whatever they might be. Also, if a student says she’s not sure what to say about Chapter 32 in A Tale of Two Cities, I would probably encourage her to just say whatever comes to mind. Plus, as strange as it might seem, I honestly feel that my classes are always successful learning experiences for all of us, whatever might happen in them, simply because learning of some kind or other is the continuous, everlasting business of all living things. As an English teacher, I also like the related word “wherever”, because wherever you look in a great work of literature – on any page, in any sentence – you can surely gather some gold, and wherever you are in your development as a writer and reader, there is the potential for putting together a few words of wonder and reading a sentence as well as lightning lights up a night, whatever you might think of your talents.

ATTENTION STILL AS NIGHT

“… [w]ith grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air.”
-- Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2

When I read these lines the other day, it struck me, strange as it may seem, that Beelzebub would be a fine role model for my teaching. It seems to me that he presented himself to his fellow devils very much the way I hope to present myself to my adolescent students. His “grave aspect” I take to mean simply a focused expression, as though, like any earnest teacher, he wanted his listeners to know he took his responsibility seriously. He seemed as strong and sturdy as a “pillar”, which, in our capricious and frenzied times, is precisely the kind of teacher teenagers need. I also like the fact that “deliberation sat” upon him, because a good teacher surely needs to be a thoughtful one, an insightful and purposeful one, a teacher who knows that victorious lessons flow only from painstaking preparation. Beelzebub’s “princely counsel” can be understood as the guidance and advice a serious teacher tries to have always ready, the “princely” part perhaps referring to the almost “majestic” atmosphere that an honestly sympathetic teacher seems to surround his students with. I especially like the power of just “his look”. As I work with my students in the classroom, I hope that, amid the occasional silliness and lightheartedness, simply my look of earnestness and resolve can create a silent steadiness among my students, the kind we might sense in the air on special summer days.

photo © 2010 scottc320 | more info (via: Wylio)

I’m sitting upstairs listening to the blustering storm outside (a blizzard is forecast) and feeling lucky and happy with my life. After all, I’m snowed in with some of my dearest friends – two of my sons, their children, and my former wife (still a great friend). Luke drove down this morning with Kaylee and Josh, and, just in case, they brought their overnight stuff to wait out the storm. Jan came up from Mystic, and she, too, brought all she needs to be warm and cozy for a night or two. We’ve had a dream-come-true day together, reading, playing, and laughing by the fire, and sledding and loving the snowfall outside. Now the kids are quieting down in their various beds, and I’m thanking whatever should be thanked for putting me right where I am on this wild winter night.

photo © 2010 Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig | more info (via: Wylio)
These last two days have been filled with blessings. I spent a happy time last night with good friends by a friendly fire, laughing, finding old stories to tell, giving each other the simple gift of friendship. Then today, I loved looking at the kids as they lingered over their many gifts. Their hearts were happy with the wonders of this special day. Noah knew nothing but joy as he jumped from a huge toy castle to a bathtub submarine to a video game for math and reading, and Ava played with her new doll with its several special outfits. The best part of the day, however, might have been seeing Matty and Noah play together for hours with the different toys. They laughed in friendship together as they went from the caste to the submarine. It was a great gift to Noah to work with his beloved uncle for most of a day, and the blessing was Matty’s, too.

POETIC ESSAYS

“… how he fell
From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o're the Chrystal Battlements: from Morn
To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,
A Summers day; and with the setting Sun
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star.”
     -- John Milton, “Paradise Lost"

My students mostly write essays for my classes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t expect to see poetry in their writing. When I read these lines from Milton this morning, all I could think of was how much I hope to find something like the musical quality of his phrases in the sentences my students write. I absolutely insist that the students consider the melodious aspect of their words as they set them down in sentences and paragraphs. For instance, I encourage them to use alliteration, as Milton does in “fell/ from heaven” – a subtle but exquisite touch – and in “summers day […] with the setting Sun”. I also ask them to consider how assonance, the melodic repetition of internal vowel sounds, might enhance a sentence, as it does in the poet’s “dewy Eve”. I even insist that they be attentive to the use of rhythms in their essays, like the iambic rhythms in the quoted passage. Each of Milton’s lines moves in a stately five-beat cadence, and I look for at least a semblance of that type of harmonious majesty in my students’ weekly essays.

photo © 2009 Ken Mayer | more info

Yesterday was a restful one for me, as they all have been lately during these holidays. I spent a soothing morning sitting by the small black woodstove, relishing the comforting warmth and working on some reading and letter-writing. Later, I cut up some firewood, but did it in a sort of calming manner, not stressing with the big maul but simply making it do what it can do. The house seemed vacant and a little lonesome without the kids, but their cheering spirits were all through the big country rooms all day.

IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER

Every so often I say to a student, “Oh, it doesn’t really matter”, and I always say it with absolute sincerity, for those few words are among the most honest words I know. As my many years in the classroom have passed, I’ve seen more and more clearly that almost nothing really matters – certainly not quiz scores nor interpretations of poems nor the ways the students use complex sentences in an essay. These things perhaps matter on the infinitesimal scale of our personal academic ambitions, but they don’t really matter, not when measured against the magnitude of this astounding universe we’re all part of. When students fall into a frenzy over the frustrations they feel as they carry out my assignments, I occasionally have to tell them that, truly, it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is not that every piece of punctuation is properly placed, nor that a variety of sentence lengths is used, nor even that an assignment is turned in on time. What really matters is simply, and only, that the students do their best with every situation. The moments of their lives, including their English class, are miracles in their midst, and their only responsibility is to see and savor those miracles. That’s what really matters.

SIMPLY

I have grown to love the word “simply”, I guess because it seems to describe so well what I enjoy about teaching. One dictionary defines the word as meaning just, only, or no more than, and that’s precisely how I try to think of my work in the classroom. I am just one human being among uncountable numbers of creations of this universe, only one ordinary guy giving his all to understanding the astonishing cosmos he’s part of, no more than a wandering, wayfaring, often faltering teacher trying to make sense of the mysteries of his adolescent students. When my work seems crushingly complicated, I remind myself that, in the end, my main job is simply to accept and appreciate whatever the present moment presents. After all, there is always just the present moment in my teaching – no distressing past lessons and no unfathomable and threatening future classes, only this unassuming moment that is making itself known right now. In order to find peace at this instant, and every instant, I need do no more than accept what is happening. Becoming a satisfied teacher is simply that simple.

LAUGHING BEFORE DAWN (FB, July 2014)

photo © 2007 James Jordan | more info

I’m an early riser, and usually I find myself doing lots of laughing before the sun has risen. I try to spend an hour or so doing some quiet, good-natured thinking before starting the duties of the day, and often it arouses more amusement in me than seriousness. During these pre-dawn reflections, I end up doing far more laughing than brooding or fretting. Life seems wonderfully full of nonsense and silliness as I sit quietly with the rising sun. What I’m usually laughing about is simply myself – my high-strung seriousness, my insistence on seeing myself as the center of the universe’s attention, my bizarre obsession with me, me, me. When I’m sitting beside the window looking out at the last of the darkness, it often comes to me how small my little “self” is compared to the endless universe I’m part of. Dwelling in the midst of countless and everlasting oceans of stars, it seems more than slightly ludicrous that I see myself as so important. In the early morning, my crushing classroom worries of yesterday seem no more significant than a single stroke of a breeze on a sleeve. This realization, far from being bad news, is vastly reassuring to me, which is what leads to my sometimes wholehearted laughs. Since I see that I’m not center stage any more, but simply a part of an endless, strong, and smooth-working universe, I feel instant relief, as though I’ve just set down a seriously heavy burden. My universe – our universe – suddenly seems so powerful and peaceful that nothing could ever seriously go wrong, including the infinitesimal part of the universe called “Hamilton the English teacher”. I take a deep breath of comfort and assurance, smile out at the encouraging sky, and let out some serious laughs before breakfast.

Today I felt, more than ever before, how lucky I am to be a grandfather. It started in the morning, when 7-year-old Noah showed me how hard a small boy can work when he almost single-handedly cleaned all the downstairs rooms. I simply trailed behind him as he went through the rooms with the vacuum cleaner, carefully switching between "floor" and "carpet" and turning dials on the big machine like an expert. He seemed more than willing to work with me on the project, and he ended up doing most of the work and making his grandfather one of the happiest guys on earth. Later, my grandchildren Josh and Kaylee came for a visit, and we spent several warm hours together in a rare kind of family friendship. Little Ava Elizabeth, bad cold and all, kept us smiling with her happy antics, as cheering for Grandpa Hammy as the fire in the fireplace.

SWEET ENTRANCED

"... sweet entranced
  After her wandering labours long."
-- John Milton, in "Comus"

It's probably fool-headed to think of anyone being "entranced" by my English class, but I must confess to daydreaming about that possibility when I read these lines this morning. My students do a great amount of scholarly "wandering" as they work their way through my lessons and assignments, and I take pleasure in innocently assuming that they occasionally slip into the type of trances great books can produce. I guess teenagers sometimes fall into trances related to television shows or songs or sports, and my fantasy dream is that they might become similarly mesmerized by the wisdom of Whitman or the musical sentences of Dickens. After trekking through pages of perplexing reading, I hope they sometimes see a shining light of understanding that sends them into the most pleasant kind of daze. I'm sure it doesn't happen often. English class is probably more humdrum than breathtaking, but maybe the students occasionally find themselves "sweet entranced" by something like adverbs or the sonnets of Shakespeare.

Baghavad Gita

On my new iPad, I've been going over some of the Baghavad Gita today, just getting back in touch with it's simple and so meaningful message. As editor Stephen Mitchell points out, the message of the Gita is utterly straightforward: Let go of attachment to the outcome of your actions. It seems to say that if we follow that simple instruction, our lives will be free of troubles. 

photo © 2004 Alfonso Surroca | more info 
My first day of winter vacation was filled with the kind of quietness I've learned to love. The morning -- a frosty but sunny one -- had a hushed atmosphere to it as Jaimie and the kids and I did our best to slowly set the day in motion. We had a lazy breakfast in the "great room" as the fire fed the room with some heat, and then the morning just passed peacefully by. Noah and I went to several stores to purchase Christmas candles and suchlike, and around noon Jaimie gave us all the gift of grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. The afternoon came and went in a restful way. Even when we went out in the freezing weather so the kids could get some exercise on the trampoline, there was a sense of no hurry, no need to scream and shout. All seemed soft and undisturbed, even Ava's and Noah's unrestrained bouncing.

THE BEAUTY OF LIGHTS AND WORDS

photo © 2010 Seth Anderson | more inf
When I drove across a bridge today in the early morning darkness and
saw the scenic lights shining around and across the river, I was reminded of something I’ve often noticed in my work as an English teacher. The lights below the bridge were beautiful in a seemingly nonfunctional way, as though they were works of art spread around the river for their sheer loveliness. I’m sure they all had a specific purpose, but for a few moments it felt like I was looking down at a work of stylish art someone had set up – a stunning assembly of lights for the sole purpose of bestowing grace and sophistication on the city. The lights seemed to have no function other than throwing an impression of classiness out to passers-by. I’ve noticed something similar in English class, both in the students’ writing and in the books we study. I realize that novels and students’ essays should have a specific purpose – a stated thesis and some painstaking details supporting it – but still, I sometimes see sentences that flash their stylishness the way the lights across the river did this morning. When I read a sentence like this, whether in a Dickens story or a student’s essay, it matters little what the sentence says, what its purpose is. All that matters is the graceful good looks of the words as they spread themselves across the page like lights in darkness for readers to look at. They might be thoroughly puzzling words -- the kind of inscrutable sentences Dickens and my students sometimes write -- and still I would read them over several times to better appreciate their strange charms. It’s hard to admit to the students that sometimes the sheer splendor of a piece of writing is more meaningful than its actual meaning, but it’s the truth. Like the lights along the river, written words can cast a spell, no matter what their actual purpose might be.

A LITTLE FLUTTERING OF WINGS

My students occasionally stare out the classroom windows at the birds on the feeder, but somehow it doesn't bother me that they're finding more marvels out there than in my lessons. Perhaps the birds actually bring some sprightliness and photo © 2009 dregsplod | more info 
luster to English class. Maybe the brightness of the birds and their winsome movements as they take their snacks lends a pleasant ambience to my sometimes tedious instructions. After all, the surroundings of my lessons can let in some valuable light on the truths I'm trying to teach -- can freshen what might otherwise be a fairly stale class. Plus, the students doubtless need a break from adverbs and metaphors every so often, and i'm sure gazing at the good-natured liveliness of birds brings refreshing relief. A few minutes spent seeing sparrows and finches finding food for themselves can perhaps send a student back to a lesson on literary terms with at least partially replenished interest. Bring on the birds, I say. A little fluttering of wings following a fifteen-minute lesson on symbolism might be just what the young scholars need.

THINGS IN THEIR PERFECT PLACE

When I awoke this morning, I saw my pen, phone, and watch on the bedside table, and, for some reason, they seemed to be in the exact perfect alignment. I remember thinking that's exactly where they should be. I had set them on the table in a random manner the night before, but when I saw them this morning, there was rightness, even gracefulness, in the way they were placed. They were sitting in what appeared to be the absolutely perfect positions. For some reason, it called to mind the many instances in my classes when aimlessly spoken words were mysteriously transformed into the perfect words for the occasion. I'm sure my students and I don't meticulously plan each word we speak, and yet our spoken words sometimes seem like skillfully designed utterances, just right for the specific situation. It's as if our words were slowly set side-by-side in a wordsmith's studio -- as if our words were a work of art instead of just casual sentences. Things happen like this in our world -- seemingly purposeless pieces of life presenting themselves as stunning creations. Scattered snowflakes falling across lawns can seem flawlessly organized, items on a table can take on a look of precision, and hit-or-miss words in English class can shine like perfectly-placed spotlights.

Seeing Better with Bare Trees

A friend said today that she could see birds a lot better now that the trees are bare, and it started me wondering whether something similar should occasionally happen in my English classes. Perhaps complex plans and detailed objectives can sometimes act like the layers of leaves on summertime trees, layers that throw the inner limbs into shadows. Perhaps my meticulous preparation -- my many goals and hopes for each class -- can actually make it almost impossible for the students to see the substance of the lessons, like looking for birds in trees loaded with leaves. Now with the trees standing disrobed and showing only their silvery shirts of bark, it's easy to see the squirrels and birds going about their winter business. The entire inner world of the woods near my house is exposed in all its intricacy and simplicity, a universe I missed in the leaf-filled months. I wonder: could it be that my students see more in my lessons, and thus learn more, when the "trees" of my plans are fairly free of fine points and accessories? Maybe I should sometimes present lessons as stripped and stark as the now slim-armed maples near my house -- lessons that might make their points with the graceful simplicity of frosty trees.

BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE GAME

“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm in an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”
--Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

This passage speaks perfectly about the kind of teacher I try to be. I absolutely want to be “in the game” -- sharing the learning process with the students, feeling their liveliness or lack of it, contributing to the creation of ideas -- but at the same time I try to stay “out of the game”. A teacher must be a talker, a performer, a maker, and a manipulator – but he must also be a silent witness, a passerby who’s fascinated by the strange deeds of the adolescents who happen to show it in his classroom. He must, at the same time, be involved and detached, drawn in to the action and aloof from it. It’s not an easy task, this living a double life, but it has its splendid compensations. It’s like skydiving and simultaneously observing myself doing it, or riding a rowdy horse and at the same time watching myself with interest and astonishment. It’s a chaotic and sometimes frenzied life, this teaching of teenagers, but also a serene and unflustered one. I’m always down on the field for the tumultuous sport called “English class”, but happily, I’m also, at the exact same time, surveying the action from the bleachers like a curious and mystified spectator.

TRICKSTERS

One of the pleasures of spending four decades in the classroom is slowly coming to realize that English teachers are essentially first-class tricksters. As a small boy, I decided I wanted to grow up to be a magician, and the miracle is that I’ve done just that. Each day I dare to do all sorts of tricks for my students in the hope that the magic of learning will, in some small ways, remake their lives. I don’t use ropes or coins or cards – just my unembellished words and gestures as I try to turn my no-frills classroom into a wizard’s place of work. In point of fact, all of us English teachers are toying with magic – with the enchanting and unexplained -- as we work with our students. Just the solitary accomplishment of understanding a line in a Shakespeare sonnet is an act of magic, a stroke of mystery and miracle. One moment a student sees only darkness in the words on the page, and in the next moment a mighty light shines from the same words. Is this not an act of magic? And is it not magic when a student sees the world of 1940’s white supremacy arising before him as he reads some sentences from Invisible Man? The student sits in a nondescript classroom out in the countryside of Connecticut, but through the wizardry of words, he’s more altogether present in the hostile city with Ellison’s storyteller. I don’t give myself much credit for creating the magic that occurs in my classroom, for most of it resides in the words we read and speak – words which might as well be wands, since just speaking or reading them can occasionally – presto! – reshuffle our lives.

UNSEARCHABLE KIDS

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

For—put them side by side—

The one the other will contain

With ease—and You—beside—

-- Emily Dickinson

In these days of ubiquitous search engines and searchable online books, it’s comforting to reflect on the fact that my students are entirely unsearchable. Unlike the Internet, which – immense as it is – can be systematically searched, categorized, classified, and labeled, my young English scholars are as immeasurable and inscrutable as the vastness of outer space. I must admit that I often pretend that my students can be uncovered, probed, analyzed, and diagnosed, but in my more sensible moments, I see the utter foolishness of this charade. It’s like looking at the sky through a transparent grid and believing the sky itself is divided into grid-like sections. It might make for interesting diversionary conversation, but it would completely miss the endlessness and incomprehensibility of the sky. Actually, I suppose pilots and other people who pass much of their time up in the air do benefit from organizing the sky into various “sections”, perhaps based on weather and winds and other flights, but surely they realize that this is only a convenient device superimposed on a sky that knows no end. Like me, they know they’re essentially working with something immeasurable – they with the heavens that have no boundaries, and I with students whose minds, as Emily Dickinson would agree, are even “wider than the sky”.